Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1887-01-17
SCENES AT THE BANK.
PATHETIC SIGHTS WITNESSED AT A
BOWERY SAVINGS INSTITUTION.

Iuc DdHk uOOrS are opened at D y. NJ,
| and are not closed until Z p. NJ. The first
| few stragglers are fireneD, whose engines
are waiting for water and fuel They
draw their pay late on Saturday evening,
hoard it over Sunday and put it away the
| first thing on Monday What temptations
some of them must resist in that thirty
| four or thirty-fiye hoursi Among these
early cemers woman appears, thinly
clad, hanging on the arm of her young
husband, whose slouchy lock and shuf-
fling gait are infaliihle signs that he is
travelling the wrong road to reach pros
| perity and happiness. Perhaps they have
q baby at the place they call home, and
she has left it that she may come here
with her wayward partner TO see their pit
| tance put beyond the immediate reach of
| the grog shop. How she must have
schemed and planned all day Sunday to
keep her good man by her side, away from
| temptation, where she could play the
watchdog over their miserable treasure
until it was in the hands of other guard
ians! If the restless man wanted to go
| upon the street she threw on her shawl
and went with him; if he insisted on hav-
ing dram she took pitcher and got him
beer with her own hands, and persuaded
him to drink it in his room. Not for an
instant did she lose sight of him Nobody
knows what stratagems such wives use TO
save their husbands and their children
and-last of all-themselves, from going
to the dogs. And can Sunday be day of
rest to them with such breakers ahead
! Why would it not be better if Friday were
made pay day, so that these people could
put away their earnings without this dan
gerous holding over for thirty odd hours?
Oh why not open the savings banks on
Sunday? Has either plan been tried in
| this city?
As day comes on and the city begins TO
wake up, the stragglers into the bank give
way to a procession. \ curious assortment
of persons forms the line that, beginning
at the grated window marked Receiving
Teller, stretches down the length of the
Office, curves to the left, in the form Of a
horseshoe, and doubling back extends be
yond the starting point into the lobby
from which it is fed. This lobby reminds
one of the hopper in an old fashioned
country grist mill. With their blue bank
books in hand the people crowd into the
small place, twisting in and out, through
and between, pushing and squeezing this
way and that way, elbowing their neigh
bors, and finally catching on to the line
of march in precisely the same manner
as the corn in the hopper finds its way
to the jaws of the millstones. Glance at
the line as it slowly pays out of the hop
per and files by the grated window See
the old woman, now nervously fumbiing
in the pocket of her too shiny alpaca
dress for few coins TO make up the
dollar she has come to deposit Savings
of week! Yesterday she went without
dinner and fire rather than rob herself of
one penny. She must have worn that
remnant of bonnet for ten years, judging
by its looks, Her shoes-you couldn call
them shoes; they are patches of old leather
sewn together somewhat in the shape of
shoes. Stockings? Why you can see the
skin of her foot through the broad seam
o-three--four-five- dol
lar: all right, says the teller He makes
a few figures in her book and hands it
back to her. The little, slender figure is
unceremoniously pushed on by the revolv-
ing tnwinding process going on in tha
hopper, and the next person in line appears
face to face with the teller.
Next comes on woman of middle age,
once short, blonde fresh and fair; now
still short, but faded and wrinkled She
has the lack-lusteF eve SO common in Der
sons who belong in what may surely be
called, even in democratic America, the
disappointed class-an eye from which all
hope of happiness long since fled She has
seen better days; she married beneath her
and her husband dragged her down. Too
late now to rise, woman Your life is
wrecked. Nothing to live for but death
But for whom is she laying up that money?
She gives the teller some notes and he
counts them out, Sc. The hopper grinds
on, sheis forced aside and disappears in
the street.
The next person in the line is a Young
girl, evidently sent by her mother to
make deposit. She gives no indication
OF the circumstances of her family, though
any one may see by her untidy dress that
her mother, be she comfortable or needy,
is careless sort of person who doesn't
believe IN the next thing to godliness.
Behind the girl is man whom you
would take to be miser, simply because
of his repulsive appearance. He is about
five feet four inches, and carries between
his shoulder blades hump that dwarfs
and stoops him, causes his neck to seem
much shorter than it is, and pushes his
head forward to an angle of As degs., 50
that it is not easy for him to raise his
eyes to look straight before him. He car
ries walking stick, and you may easily
imagine that his room in some Houston
street garrett is the abode of cats, and
snakes and crow or two, in whose COM
panionship he finds what he imagines is
sublunary happiness. But if a miser
he is of new breed, for who ever heard
of one of the old kind keeping his money
in bank? He deposits $50 and moves on.
Behind him is poor fellow who has
been doing tie work of Sisyphus for
twenty years. He has the poor man mis-
fortune-a big family-and whenever his
bank account begins to grow one of the |
"chllders" needs the doctor, and suddenly |
the money is all gone. Then he begins |
over again, with the same result, and so it |
goes on, year after year. '.If | can only |
get start, y is his refrain to the ceaseless |
song of his disaqpointments. Next comes
young mother, leading her little girl by
the hand, and smiling at the chiId's |
pranks. There must be sunshine in her |
home. Her industrious husband. too busy |
to come to the bank, makes her the |
chancellor of the exchequer To-day she |
adds $40 to their steadily increasing fund |
and joyfully goes her way About four |
persons in ten who pass the receiving tel |
Ter seem to care little for life in the ab-
straet; the other six appear contented and |
reasonably happy. II there is any one |
thing calculated to produce feeling of |
supreme satisfaction in man it is a grow |
ing bank account; so there ought to be a |
larger proportion of happy persons about |
the receiving teller of a bank-a safe bank |
than anywhere else. For that reason it |
is not proper place to get afcorrect idea
OF the condition of humanity, for many
miserable thousands In every community
never darken u hs1k door.-New York
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